Low pay drives secret second jobs in the public sector

Low pay and unfulfilling roles in the public sector push some workers to secretly hold multiple full-time or part-time jobs, a practice known as polygamous working that can breach contracts or data protection rules and lead to disciplinary action or fraud prosecutions. The National Fraud Initiative has identified hundreds of cases since 2016, saving taxpayers money through payroll and benefits data matching, with recent years seeing new probes and prosecutions as remote work makes concealment easier. Authorities emphasize zero tolerance and are expanding data matching to root out such practices.